Making bins, bollards and benches from used plastic bags

Making bins, bollards and benches from used plastic bags

26th May 2016

The Packaging Forum reports that shoppers in Auckland and the Waikato have dropped off over twenty- five tonnes of soft plastic packaging at 70 New World, PAK’nSAVE, The Warehouse and selected Countdown stores in Auckland and 23 locations in Hamilton and the Waikato. This is equivalent to around 4.5 million units of soft plastic bags, wrappers and pouches.

Lyn Mayes, Project Manager says:

“Since Christmas weekly collections by Abilities Group have trebled to an average of three large bin liners of soft plastic packaging per store per week. That’s on course to reach six to eight bin liners each filled with around 5kg of plastic bags and packaging each week per store by the end of the year.”

“REDcycle which operates the program tracks progress by store. New World customers have collected 50% of the total volume. New World New Lynn has just taken over the lead as top performing Auckland store from New World Eastridge and New World Hillcrest has held the lead in Hamilton since March. The top 5 performing stores in Auckland and Waikato are:

“The first audit has found that 63% of collected packaging is shopping bags, fruit and vegetable bags and 31% is grocery packaging primarily bread bags, toilet roll packaging and the soft plastic wrap around drinks packs. There is 6% contamination mainly from other plastic items such as bottles or coffee cups which we are working to reduce through better signage and education.”

Andrew Hewett, Chair of The Packaging Forum says:

“We are now turning the soft plastic packaging into new plastic products. The first container has shipped to Replas in Melbourne where the packaging will be manufactured into bollards, traffic speed bumps, decking and tracking, furniture and a whole range of durable and weather resistant plastic products suitable for construction, conservation, commercial and community groups.”

“We have also run trials with Astron in Auckland which has supplied plastic pellets processed from the programme to bin manufacturer Pioneer. As a result, the new recycling bins for Canterbury stores will include a 10% recycled soft plastic component.”

According to research conducted on behalf of the Packaging Forum by Horizon Research :

42% Aucklanders have heard of the programme with a similar number 43% in Hamilton.

23% respondents from Auckland have already used the service compared with 13.5% in Hamilton.

53% of those using the service say they use it occasionally with 32% using it fortnightly or less.

Awareness of what can be recycled varies:

Mayes outlines the programme’s 2016 expansion plans:-

From the 10th June, 50 stores in Canterbury will join the Love NZ soft plastic recycling programme with expansion planned for Greater Wellington in October. After a successful trial on the North Shore, all Countdown stores across Auckland will have our new recycling bins from July which will almost double the drop off locations for Aucklanders.”

In addition to funding from The Packaging Forum and the participating retailers, the service is supported by Asaleo Care, Ceres, Cottonsoft, Goodman Fielder, Kelloggs, Kimberly-Clark, Mars, Mondelez, Mother Earth, Nestle, NZ Post, Pams, Pure Delish, Simplot, Sunrice, Wrigley, Amcor, Astron, Elldex and Replas.

For Information

The Packaging Forum promotes the Love NZ brand under license from the Ministry for Environment. http://www.recycling.kiwi.nz/soft-plastics

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